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I was intrigued to listen to Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton in a recent television interview explain how he believed that success does not just happen, he described the secret to success as being; hard work, determination and the help of a good support structure.

This explanation mirrors the philosophy we share at the EGPI where we believe in structuring and supporting individual training programmes to help players “Plan for Success”. No player will make it to the top without a desire to succeed, strong work ethic and a clear picture of how they are going to achieve success.

At the EGPI we cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of the statement “TO FAIL TO PLAN IS TO PLAN TO FAIL”; success does not just happen, listen to Lewis Hamilton.

In this article we will present ideas and share some of our experiences; including processes and techniques we have used to direct and support players in their quest to be champion golfers.

One of the tools which we have developed at the EGPI is the Performance Golf Training Diary ©.

Divided into 10 sections, which talk the player through the process of evaluating where they are now and planning on a daily basis how they are going to work to improve their performance.

SECTION 1. ATTRIBUTES REQUIRED TO BE A WORLD CLASS GOLFER - simply explains the attributes required to compete and perform at the highest level in the areas of Technique, Physiology, Psychology, Performance Standards, Planning & Managing your schedule and Equipment. Any player who wants to reach the top needs to understand these attributes and how to underpin them in terms of advice, support, work rate and management.

SECTION 2. SELF EVALUATION - asks you to evaluate where you are now and analyse the amount of time you spend performing various tasks over a typical week utilising a simple matrix.

SECTION 3. SETTING GOALS & TARGETS - poses the question - if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve how do you expect to achieve it? Here you are asked not just to identify your goals in terms of Golf, Education and Career in the Short, Medium and Long Term, but to begin to break these down into processes, outcomes and actions to achieve them on a monthly basis.

SECTION 4. COMPETITION PROGRAMME - having sets the goals for the next 12 months you are then tasked to build a Competition programme that aims to deliver the outcome. You are encouraged to record your progress and budget the cost for the period.

SECTION 5. TRAINING PROGRAMME - we have talked in previous articles how in pursuit of excellence; Olympic athletes have detailed and planned training regimes in place. This section presents you with tools to record and monitor specific areas which you may need to work on to develop your game.

It also explains the need to build a team of coaches to help you plan, manage and deliver your training & preparation programme.

SECTION 6. WEEKLY PLANNER - is the secret to measuring your improvement in performance. You are asked to evaluate your progress and commitment to your training & competitive programme on a daily basis. It encourages you to plan daily what you are going to do to improve your golf performance Technically, Physically, Psychological and Competitively. You are tasked each day to rate you commitment and record how motivated you are in your application.

SECTION 7. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT - is crucial so that you can objectively measure your individual performances. Here we ask you to measure and monitor your statistics by recording information about each competitive round that you play. The information and feedback from this process can be extremely useful for you and your coaching team to help improve your game.

SECTION 8. EQUIPMENT - it is important that you use equipment that suits your game and your swing attributes. Here we ask you to record important information about the tools that you use.

SECTION 9. ANNUAL SCHEDULE - a year planner on one sheet of paper so that you can easily plan and manage your training and competitive programme at a glance. Planning the schedule is an extremely important area, often overlooked – you don’t see Tiger playing competitive golf week in week out, he has a planned and structured training and preparation programme geared to peak performance for major events.

SECTION 10. DIET & NUTRITION - Often overlooked and left to last! This section presents a brief overview of Diet & Nutrition and how it can play a vital role in affecting your performance.

Hopefully we have briefly explained how planning and managing the training programme can help you improve your performance and “Plan for Success”. In the next article we will explore the Holistic, Multi-Disciplined approach to training and how that fits in with the EGPI’s philosophy.

For further details on the Performance Golf Training Diary © and how it can help to improve your performance visit our web site at www.egpi.eu.